"Human nature is you get carried away, so we have to protect ourselves from ourselves. In Government you are pressed by the security agencies. They come to you with very good information and they say, 'You need to do something'.

"So you do need the breath of scepticism, not cynicism, breathing on them. You need to be able to take a step back.

"If you don't have this, you can find yourself being propelled in a particular direction."

He said a high-level review by specialists was the best way to update laws.